The Awakened Woman

by Tererai Trent

  A week later I received a message that I had passed the interview. I was thrilled and knew Nyadenga, the Creator of the Universe, was in agreement with my buried dreams. My main function in the job was to mobilize women to join savings clubs that would allow them to securely save money and take out loans from development aid organizations. I knew from the start that here was a piece of my healing. A deep connection to my fifth dream was being forged well before achieving the other dreams, because I was already empowering women in communities like mine. And despite the small paycheck, I managed to save enough to pay for more classes.

  At this time, Zimbabwe’s currency was stronger than the American dollar, since we used British pounds before independence. Every payday, I put aside money for my dream to get an education in America. I hid my money in different places, changing the locations often, because I was afraid my husband would find it. Becoming paranoid, I started having dreams that he would find the cash, and often I could not sleep because the dreams were so real. I was known for walking and talking in my sleep, so I became afraid to sleep at all and developed terrible insomnia. I always looked tired and irritable.

  Despite my belief in my dreams, fear became my worst enemy and I knew this way of living was not sustaining me. I decided to give my money to different people I trusted for safekeeping. I wrote their names down hoping to keep an accurate record of the amounts. Then I finally gave up counting because I was afraid someone would find the paper with the information.

  Without any record, I continued to give money to my sister, mother, and sister-in-law, and prayed they would not be tempted to spend it. They promised to safeguard my savings, which they jokingly referred to as “sacred America,” indicating that my money was destined to be spent there. How ironic! I was helping other women securely save, but I struggled so hard to do it for myself.

  It was at this time that my husband Zuda joined a church commonly known as madzibaba or postori (apostolic or relating to the spiritual authority of the apostles). While Christianity is one of the major religions practiced in Zimbabwe, recent years saw an increase in the number of new denominations branching away from more traditional churches like the Methodists and the Anglicans. These churches are collectively known as vaPostori in Shona—or Apostles. Members of the churches are well known for their appearance and the way they dress. Men shave their heads, grow beards, wear long white gowns, and carry a long walking stick known as tsvimbo yemadzibaba—“the father’s stick.” On the other hand, women and girls remain in their white gowns, shave their heads or keep the hair very short and covered in long white head scarves. While many of the VaPositori derive their teachings from the Bible, their greater emphasis is on prophecy, belief in oil or water miracle healing, polygamy (some), and fasting in the wilderness. Generally, women believe in their subordination to men.

  These churches mushroomed throughout Zimbabwe, particularly in poor towns such as Epworth, Chitungwiza, and Mbare, as well as in rural areas. Men commonly referred to as “bishops” ruled such churches. Believed to be God’s “chosen ones,” they exerted a great deal of influence. Power struggles erupted as male members fought to get closer to the bishop.

  All around me, night prayers took place in homes and in the mountains. Church members wearing white garments worshipped under trees and sometimes spoke in tongues. Some members convinced the congregation that they could see into the future. In my mind, prophecy is used to manipulate women to become more subservient to their husbands and to control their individual freedom. These so-called prophets claimed to have psychic powers, and they often accused nonbelievers of using ancestral spirits to bewitch other community members.

  An unemployed young man might be told that his jealous older relatives have used juju, or bad omens, to prevent him from getting a job. A young woman who struggles in her marriage might be warned that her female relatives (usually dead grandmothers) are to blame for the problems she has with her husband. The prophets also caused much dissension within families. Some spent days gathering private information about a particular person and then made dire “predictions” about this same person in front of the entire congregation. The poor victim of the trick had no idea that the prophet had been playing detective; instead, the victim believed the prophet had divined her most shameful secrets using special abilities and second sight.

  While women are generally deferential in the church hierarchy, some also became scammers. Even though they cannot hold senior positions in the church, women are allowed to prophesize, and they are often used by men to demonize those who don’t conform. During services, they sway in a trancelike state as though imparting messages from God’s angels.

  I became a target when I tried to tell the women of the church that their prophets weren’t seeing the future, but instead were secretly gathering private information and using it to spin false stories. I saw how belief was being manipulated, and I tried to stop it. For many months, I refused to attend church, which brought the wrath of its members upon my head. Word got around that a male demon on my paternal grandmother’s side had made me stubborn.

  Life at home was miserable. My husband forced my children to attend church, and because I was afraid that they would be brainwashed or hurt, I resolved to go with them. One particular Sunday, I was asked to confess. Not knowing what to confess, I kept my mouth shut. A prophet took my husband aside and before I knew it, several big men and women were holding me down. Screaming and yelling, they attempted to exorcise a demon. I was encircled by people speaking in tongues, which to me sounded like gibberish. As they sang and clapped their hands, one woman shook and twisted my head while another poured water over me. I concentrated on not passing out as a terrible headache surfaced. I assumed a rigid position because I was afraid that they might break my neck.

  A woman and a man repeatedly told the crowd that they sensed a male demon in me, and it was about to come out. This announcement escalated the singing and praying. All of a sudden the church was hushed down because there was another prophetic message. I was told that I not only had a male demon, but also several she-devil spirits. The hurtful words stung me deeply, although I did not let my tormentors know this. When this failed, they gave up on me and decided to find my husband a good wife.

  This was a dark period of my life. Although the church discourages wife beating, the emotional abuse I experienced had the same effect. Zuda considered marrying again, but thankfully, a senior church member, a Mr. Moyana, did not think that finding a new wife was the right decision for my husband. When Mr. Moyana confronted the prophets and my husband, several other senior people agreed with him. My husband resigned from the church and became the bishop of his own congregation. Some prophets followed him and as his church grew, so did my misery at home.

  My husband’s church was like none I had seen before. Young followers would do anything to make him happy. Out of favor, I became a convenient target. I was continually identified as evil and called a witch, a prostitute, a male demon within a woman’s body, and a being with avenging spirits. I had had enough of this harassment! So one day as the men were enjoying tea and bread, I told them that they were a bunch of losers who needed education and good jobs. I confronted the women and told them that they were victims of the church. In response, my livid husband burned my study materials, which I desperately needed in order to write my exams. In doing so, he destroyed one of the only material things he knew really mattered to me.

  Our life together became a cold war. I attended church in white garments but stubbornly remained silent. To maintain peace, I stayed away from any discussion of my husband’s promiscuous behavior, finances, health, or the family’s well-being. To escape further trauma, I let my imagination wander during services. What would life be like with an education? Dreaming of a better life was exciting and therapeutic. With my money hidden safely among different relatives and friends, I applied for a passport. When it arrived, I hid my precious documents in a bag of cornmeal. No man would think of opening a bag o
f cornmeal because cooking is a woman’s job.

  My sister, Tariro, and some close cousins were at a loss as to how to help because they could not openly intervene, but they lightened the mood by nicknaming me “Mai Bishop”—Mrs. Bishop, or Mai Vemadhirezi Machena—“Mother of White Garments.” They encouraged me never to give up and to continue to hide every penny and dime in my possession. They told me to keep believing in my dreams.

  Sisters, I have intimately experienced how belief systems can uphold and create unjust hierarchies. Yet even as I contemplate the hurt and pain my husband’s faith caused many women (and many men), I know that as much as this is a story about how belief can be manipulated to do harm to people, rather than to set them free, it is also a story about how I held on to my own belief in the face of that hurt. I trusted my dreams.

  During these difficult years, I exhumed and reburied and exhumed again my written dreams, I spoke of them to anyone who would listen, and I leaned on my community. To ground my resolve to stay on course, I took my mother’s words as my mantra. I would often pretend to be my mother talking to this young and vulnerable Tererai: “Tererai, if you believe in your dreams and you achieve them, you will define who you are, as well as each life that comes out of your womb and those for generations to come.” I saw these words as a priceless inheritance I had received from her.

  Together with my daily prayers, this mantra became my morning, afternoon, and bedtime ritual. The place I buried my dreams became my own little church, my own altar. I created belief rituals that sustained me when the path forward seemed most hopeless. This place became my wall of resistance, the place that grounded my faith and helped me defy my own silencing.

  This was my small act in my own small world, but I also know of so many women who have experienced the oppressive potential of belief systems in bigger platforms, and yet they were not deterred. I think of Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) and director and founding member of Women of the Wall, who was arrested and strip-searched as she and two hundred fifty other women prayed out loud with the full power of their voices at the Western Wall in Jerusalem—rather than the silent praying with muted voices as most of the women who pray at the wall are encouraged to do. After her release, she went right back to the Wall.3

  I think of Islamic feminist scholar and activist Amina Wadud, who, despite international condemnations and threats of violence, was the first woman to lead a Muslim prayer for a mixed-gender audience in the United States in 2005.4 We are not all internationally recognized activists like Anat or Amina, but we can all take the same stand in our lives. My sisters, it does not matter if the toxic beliefs are your own or those of a whole institution; the power these beliefs have to silence us and the need to overcome them is hugely significant.

  Whether it is dangerous or one-dimensional media images, economic inequality, or religious justifications for women’s inferiority, we are so often encouraged to distrust ourselves, to see ourselves as limited and small, rather than spiritually infinite and cosmically significant beings. We are indeed at a pivotal historical moment when it comes to women and faith.

  Let us take it back. Let us be spiritually whole, let us be spiritual leaders, let us dare to have wild and radical faith in ourselves and our connectedness to the universe. Let us be grounded and make our very lives a great ritual for divine purpose.

  Cleanse Me: Belief Rituals

  Although Zuda’s church exemplifies the worst in belief practices, thank goodness my culture also gave me very powerful belief rituals. When my beloved mother died, many years after I had achieved my dreams of going to America and getting an education, I was thrown into such a state of grief that I did not know if I could go on—for how could I live without my mother, the woman who had so inspired and blessed my life? During this desperately difficult time, I returned home from America for her funeral, and the power of spirituality became clearer to me than ever before.

  I found myself back at my familial homestead, needing to depend so deeply on my belief to help me continue living now that my mother, who taught me to believe, was no longer of this world. I could not help but reflect on my village’s indigenous rituals and practices: What would sustain me in my deepest grief? What belief practices do I want to keep with me?

  In times of loss and distress our elders perform sacred rituals consulting and seeking guidance from the power of unseen guardians. These guardians, our ancestors, are our channels to Nyadenga, the Great Spirit. Soon my mother would be such a guide for me. This is what I thought of as I waited near her coffin for the ceremonial funeral rites to begin: the Great Spirit. You see, the loss of my mother was devastating and I still mourn her, yet at the same time, I celebrate her gifts.

  Named Shamiso (“a miracle”), my mother was the last daughter of VaHarusekanwi, the first wife of VaMuzanenhamo. Despite lacking a formal education, VaHarusekanwi healed the sick and delivered babies with great skill. She weeded other people’s fields to ensure that her family had food and opened her home to sick relatives and even strangers in need. VaHarusekanwi set a powerful example, and my mother, Shamiso, followed in her footsteps.

  During her lifetime, my mother took care of her siblings and stepsiblings. Like her mother and grandmother before her, Shamiso was abused by a promiscuous husband and expected to raise the many children he sired with other women. Like VaHarusekanwi, Shamiso also worked the fields to feed a growing family—and anyone else she encountered who was hungry. But it was not only food and clothing that my mother passed along. Respected by many for her wisdom and kindness, my mother served as a role model for others and had a big impact on the entire village.

  Admired for her tenacity, many in the village called her “Shava Mhofu,” signifying her eland totem, the animal believed to have the greatest spiritual power. To our people, the eland (a species of antelope) represents well-being, healing, peace, and plenty. This majestic animal is thought to lead people on a journey to the world beyond that connects them to God. From an early age, we are taught that the dead are not gone forever but rather remain as angels in our midst.

  On the day of her funeral, I remember the rain falling at a slow, steady pace and a woman in her late thirties arriving at our homestead in a sleek black hearse. In our village, we hardly saw motor vehicles other than the buses that transport people to cities. It was rare to see such a fancy car in this part of Zimbabwe—and especially rare to see a solitary woman at the wheel. The woman parked the hearse, turned off the engine, and all that remained was deafening silence of the night. Neighborhood dogs stopped barking, and the singing and dancing at a nearby hut faded.

  A short distance away, nearly forty adult men—some perched on benches and others on low wooden stools—quietly gathered around a big, open fire within a makeshift tent. Aside from the crackling wood, the only sounds came from frogs, crickets, and other creatures that do not concern themselves with human affairs. Like a polished stone, the deep yellow moon shone down on the mud clinging to the car’s steel rims. A streak of red earth spattered along the vehicle is proof of a journey ventured far from the paved road.

  I looked around the mourners and realized that no one was going to sleep this night as my mother is welcomed and prepared to enter the Spirit World. The singing and dancing will consume each moment until my mother’s spirit departs this world.

  Lamentations from the room housing my mother’s coffin stop abruptly when an ancient-looking man raises his hand. The room became so silent that one could hear a pin drop. All eyes were on the coffin, almost as if everyone expected the dead body to awaken. Crouching down, the old man’s raspy voice rings out: “Those in the Spirit World, we bring Shamiso to her people.” Then the Supreme Being and Creator takes her into the Spirit World, where it now belongs.

  More silence prevails and still, all eyes face my mother’s coffin. My mother’s remaining stepbrother, Uncle Maka, announces that the journey to the Spirit World will begin before midday. Korekore tradition doe
s not allow burial at midday because it is too hot. While spirits of the dead must be sent off in a cool environment, evenings are shunned for fear of witches. It is believed that naked witches, on the backs of ferocious hyenas or in baskets controlled by broomsticks, search for dead flesh to eat at night. I cringe as I imagine hyenas and witches feeding on my mother, and I wonder why all the evil things tend to be women. Ambuya Muzoda used to tell me that the Great Spirit had at one time been a woman until men made us believe that God is male.

  In my mother’s hut, some mourners begin the familiar movements of a traditional chinyamusasure dance. Three men slowly encircle the women, forming what reminds me of a cattle kraal, or enclosure. The women respond with a mix of fluid and shuffling movements, raising their hips to mark the earth’s spirit as provider of fertility and life. Korekore dancers leave little to the imagination when enacting such scenarios as courtship, sexuality, friendship, and hunting.

  I stare at the dancers with wonder, appreciating the beauty and strength of our indigenous rituals. The songs that reinforce and instill belief in the power of our ancestors and the traditional dance take me back to the war that shaped my childhood. The war that liberated my country from the Rhodesian regime was a violent one, with many unspeakable things happening to rural communities. Women and girls became the casualties of war and suffered at the hands of evil men. Believing in our freedom was what inspired us and enabled many of us to wake up every day and cheer the freedom fighters. While the Rhodesian soldiers’ brutality succeeded in dividing us temporarily, they did not appreciate how our commitment to Mother Earth and our strong belief in the Spirit World would bring us together again and ensure our survival as a people.

  Not only do the chinyamusasure dancers narrate their pain and sorrow from the war as they experienced it, they also encourage the next generation to believe in their freedom and demand their dignity whenever it is violated. More important, the dance is a reminder of what grounds our indigenous belief system as an expression of Mother Earth’s ancient wisdom, which teaches healing and forgiveness above all. The colonial government was out of touch with this reality—this power of an inherently woven belief among the people that helped lead them to win an almost impossible war.